


einfühlung

by thishazeleyeddemon



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Study, Drabble, F/M, Introspection, M/M, Maybe not but idk just in case, Multi, No Incest, Out of Character, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Short One Shot, Sibling Love, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Stream of Consciousness, both kinds!, hate that I have to say it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 22:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13773999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thishazeleyeddemon/pseuds/thishazeleyeddemon
Summary: EINFÜHLUNG[noun]empathy; sensitivity; understanding so intimate that the feelings, thoughts, and motives of one person are readily comprehended by another.Princess Shuri's thoughts on soulmates, platonic and not.





	einfühlung

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think this is bad, but also it's 1 AM and my nose is running and I'm absolutely not proofreading this so - who knows?
> 
> Anyway, I don't think this is disrespectful in any way but I'm a White and also a Dumbass so if it's got bad bits and I didn't realize please tell me and I will change it. I mean I think it's fine but again, Am An Dumbass

Shuri had always disliked the Bonding Colors. Other people liked the easy, quick cue to find who you liked or who you could have a connection with, but it bothered Shuri. You ought to have a choice about that sort of thing, if you wanted people to know or not. Not just shake hands with a stranger and then have your skin turn green or something. 

 

More than that, though, was the mystery around it. 

 

She had  _ no idea  _ why the colors happened. 

 

What was the biological process there? Where did the new pigmentation come from? 

 

Why in Bast’s name could her equipment pick up nothing when colors appeared on people’s skin?

 

It felt irritatingly like a failure. 

 

There wasn’t supposed to be  _ anything  _ that she couldn't understand. And yet.

 

And yet. 

 

No instruments worked. No one reported any odd feelings when they appeared. They were just  _ there.  _ And she had no way of finding out why.

 

Also, they caused people a lot of drama, even on top of normal drama.

 

She remembered walking in, shortly after the battle, on Okoye talking to W’Kabi. They were separated by barely an inch, and also by the invisible forcefield (which was her making, of course.) She hadn’t stayed long enough to hear, but she remembered the stress and anguish on Okoye’s face as she held out her hand to W’Kabi, showing him the indigo mark on her knuckles. W’Kabi’s face was scrunched with guilt and sorrow as he touched the blood-red smear over his nose.

 

(She’d turned on her heel and left before she was seen.)

 

Or T’Challa, who now sported three color marks - a bright green smudge, like healthy grass, right by his mouth, a deep, rich, red brown handprint on his shoulder, and a few fingers dyed a shiny, dark blue, like unmined vibranium.

 

Nakia, M’Baku, Shuri. 

 

She touched the corresponding royal purple mark on her cheek. 

 

But anyway, his color marks had made him worry a lot. Like when he and Nakia had first started dating and he’d walked into dinner with a green mouth and  _ Baba  _ and  _ Umama  _ had spent like a good half hour teasing and congratulating him. It’d...bothered Shuri, young as she had been then. Shouldn't he be able to tell them himself? She didn't really want to know if he didn't want to say. 

 

But he had to wear it on his skin like a brand, and it didn't bother him until they started fighting, and Nakia left, left all the way across the continent, and it didn't fade even then. And Nakia and T’Challa had to wear marks on their faces that told everyone that they’d had someone who had left them.

 

It didn't really seem right. 

 

Her mark and M’Baku’s were alright. Maybe? He’d used the mark M’Baku had put on him when he had put him in the snow in Jabari lands (a memory that still made her heart skip) to get the Jabari on his side.  _ Look, I'm your friend. I wear a mark from your leader with pride. _

 

Which had worked, which was just... _ odd _ to Shuri. Why did no one ever think that a connection between people could be a bad one? 

 

(Although it wasn't with M’Baku and T’Challa for some reason. The same reason she’d had to get Nakia, M’Baku, and T’Challa on the same line so they could talk about things like  _ cultural norms surrounding relationships  _ and  _ political statuses  _ and  _ T’Challa being a thrice-cursed idiot but he has enough love for two people, just so you know, anyway, figure that out without murder please,  _ she guessed.)

 

That brought her mind back several months, to the Killmonger incident. 

 

Erik Stevens. Erik Killmonger. N’Jadaka. Cousin, warrior, royal, murderer. Soldier, wildcat. Nexus of chaos. 

 

She had a photographic memory, but even so - the memory of the battle seemed even more clear, somehow. The sunlight glaring down from above. Killmonger’s wildcat smile. The golden shine of his Panther suit. The scrape of fabric against her back as she tried to scramble away. 

 

And, of course, the golden smear on T’Challa’s forehead when he came back out of the mines, bearing Killmonger's body with him.

 

It’d turned her stomach to see. Her brother was marked by a murderer, who’d tried to kill her and him, who thought nothing of death and destruction because he thought it could ease the pain in his heart. 

 

She did pity Erik, lost and alone away from his home. But she was glad when the gold faded the moment they pushed Killmonger's body out into the open ocean, leaving T’Challa free of his influence. Leaving him with just his green, his red, and his blue. 

 

And her purple. 

 

She rubbed at the mark on her cheek. 

 

Would always have her purple. 

 

And her brother, no matter how many dumb things he did or people he pissed off, would always have his blue.

 

(Even if he was sometimes just really dumb.)


End file.
